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Vase of flowers, 1881-1882

 
 
 
 
 
Details     Description
   
Artist Monet, Oscar-Claude

Between 1878 and 1882, for the only extended period in his career, Monet concentrated on still lifes. He was likely motivated in part by financial concerns: opulent flower paintings found a readier market at this time than did his landscapes. The present work is one of 21 floral still lifes he undertook during this time, and contrasts notably with the few paintings of cultivated cut flowers he produced in the 1860s, which adhere more closely to the conventions established for the genre by eighteenth-century painters such as Chardin. The lush bouquet of pink and white mallows – a common wildflower – billows out of a green ceramic vase resting on a table which seems partly to dissolve into an indeterminate background, rendered in overlapping webs of sparkling colour. The slightly off-centre placement of the vase and the unusually high viewpoint make the table- top and the vase appear to tilt, somewhat disconcertingly, to the left.

The blossoms and foliage are rendered in thick, short dabs of paint that, rather than defining their forms, convey a raw, unfiltered impression, very much in keeping with Monet’s interest in vision as the pure sensation of light and colour. However, the heavily worked surface also hints at the difficulties Monet experienced in resolving the painting, which he alluded to in his letters to his dealer Paul Durand-Ruel in 1882. Indeed, he kept the painting in his studio until close to the end of his life, only signing and selling it around 1920. The very stylistic qualities that might have limited its appeal to buyers in the 1880s – the rough surface, the rapid, almost crude paint application and the lack of formal definition – made it attractive to twentieth-century taste, and it is worth noting that it was the first painting by Monet to enter Courtauld’s collection.

 

Inscriptions: signed : bottom right & recto : : Claude Monet 

 

Accession Number: P.1932.SC.275

Mode of Acquisition: Samuel Courtauld, gift, 1932

Credit: The Courtauld, London (Samuel Courtauld Trust) 

 

Provenance:

Bernheim-Jeune, Paris; Alex Reid, Glasgow; purchased by Samuel Courtauld in May 1923; Samuel Courtauld Gift, 1932. 

 
Date 1881-1882
 
Institution Courtauld Institute Galleries, London
   
Medium Oil on canvas
 
Dimensions 100.4 x 81.8 cm